IMA slaps 1000 cr defamation notice on Ramdev

Dehradun: The Indian Medical Association has slapped a defamation notice on Ramdev for his alleged disparaging remarks against allopathy and...

Dehradun: The Indian Medical Association has slapped a defamation notice on Ramdev for his alleged disparaging remarks against allopathy and allopathic doctors. The IMA has demanding an apology from him within 15 days, failing which it said it will demand a compensation of Rs 1,000 crore from the yoga guru.

The six-page notice served on behalf of IMA (Uttarakhand) secretary Ajay Khanna by his lawyer Neeraj Pandey describes the remarks by Ramdev as damaging to the reputation and the image of allopathy and around 2,000 practitioners who are part of the IMA.
Calling the yoga guru’s remarks a "criminal act" under Section of 499 of the Indian Penal Code, the notice demanded a written apology from him within 15 days of its receipt, saying a compensation of Rs 1,000 crore will be demanded from him at the rate of Rs 50 lakh per member of the IMA if he failed to do so.
The notice has also asked Ramdev to make a video clip contradicting all his allegations and circulate it on the social media platforms where he had uploaded his earlier video.
It has also asked the yoga guru to withdraw a "misleading" advertisement from all platforms endorsing "Coronil kit", a product of his firm, as an effective medicine for Covid-19, failing which the IMA will lodged an FIR and a criminal case against him .
On Sunday, Ramdev was forced to withdraw a statement made in a viral video clip in which he is heard questioning some of the medicines being used to treat the Coronavirus infection and saying that "lakhs have died from taking allopathic medicines for Covid-19".
The remarks were met with angry protests from the doctors' association, following which the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan asked him to withdraw the "extremely unfortunate" statement.

In a strongly worded letter to Ramdev, the minister said, "Through your statement you not only disrespected corona warriors but also deeply hurt the sentiments of countrymen. Your statement on allopathy can break the morale of healthcare workers and weaken our fight against Covid-19," Vardhan said.

A day later, the yoga guru posed 25 questions to the IMA in an 'open letter' on his Twitter handle, asking if allopathy offered permanent relief for ailments such as hypertension and type-1 and 2 diabetes. He listed some modern day ailments such as Parkinson's Disease, wondering if allopathy had any painless cure to treat infertility as well as to reverse ageing and increase haemoglobin.
Ramdev's close aide Acharya Balkrishna also took to Twitter, complaining that the yoga guru and Ayurveda were being targeted by allopathic practitioners under the IMA as part of a conspiracy.